7 Surprising Facts About Jobs Around the World

That's the lofty target a World Bank report released Monday estimates will need to be created on a global basis before 2020 in order to absorb people entering the workforce, prevent economies across the globe from stalling and ward off social discontent.

And that was just one of the many statistics the Washington, D.C.-based institution noted in its mammoth 420-page book on jobs worldwide. The wide-ranging work, which focused on the state of employment worldwide, the effects of recent economic booms and busts and the policy landscape for promoting employment, was chock-full of figures on everything from the economic productivity of certain countries to labor force participation to calculations of how being employed relates to civic participation.

“Demographic shifts, technological progress and the lasting effects of the international financial crisis are reshaping the employment landscape in countries around the world,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a foreword to the report. “Countries that successfully adapt to these changes and meet their jobs challenges can achieve dramatic gains in living standards, productivity growth and more cohesive societies.”

Many of the report's findings were run-of-the-mill for this type of international research book. For example, there are many statistics about how employment empowers women in the process of democratic participation and keeps young people away from violent crime. But there were a few true eye-openers.

In graphic form, we present some of the most surprising World Bank findings.